How often have you finished
a game and thought “You know, I wish I hadn’t given the puck away on
a couple of those plays because I would have had a great game.”? If
you look back over the course of a season, you would likely be
shocked to see how many routine plays turned into goals. Too often
we put our emphasis on stopping those “big plays”. Yes…..a game
changing save is huge for your team’s psyche, but making that one
pivotal save won’t matter much if you let in some softballs. Let’s
look at some seemingly routine plays that can turn into goals.

1) Long Shots

I’ve watched literally
thousands goalies in practice and warm-ups over the past 30 years.
Most goalies take warming up and long shot drills for granted. They
“get in the way” but don’t bear down on what they are doing with the
rebounds. If you rush from shot to shot in these types of drills,
you haven’t given much thought about where the rebound is going. If
the shots are coming from the blue line, there should be NO rebounds
in the slot. However, if you watch most goalies in these drills,
there are many that go back out into play. These routine shots may
wind up as beautiful goals because the goalie did not control the
easily controllable open point shot. If you’re not able to freeze
the puck in drills, at least turn into the save and watch to make
sure it deflects safely to the corner.

2) Freezing Pucks

This is a basic skill that
is not practiced seriously. Many times I see goalies have a chance
to kill a play by freezing a loose puck yet they smack it back into
play where the opposing team wins it back and scores. Some goalies
always whack a loose puck to the same place. If a team plays you
more than once it won’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that
all loose pucks are swept to the same place. All the other team has
to do is place a forward in the general area of your swept rebounds
and he or she will have an open net to shoot at when you give the
puck your “auto pilot” smack. Unless you get commission for the
amount of saves you make, it would be far wiser to freeze loose
pucks than to give the other team additional scoring chances.

3) High Shots

Thanks to modern
technology, goalies have some amazing catching gloves to work with.
Despite these modern marvels, many goalies are still very sloppy
with their catching technique so pucks that should be caught are
sent back out into play. If you can’t keep pucks in your glove,
there are several reasons why this may be happening. The glove may
be facing towards your chest instead of the puck, you may twist your
hand at the point of contact which will spin the puck back out into
play, you may not be turning your head and back shoulder into the
save which means the puck will glance off the heel or side of the
glove instead of nestling into the pocket or you may drop your hand
and whip it up quick. If you drop your hand and whip it up, the
glove will not be in the lane the puck is rising in and it will go
right over your elbow and into the net. So, long story shot….if you
can’t control routine high shots you must correct your technique so
you aren’t giving easy rebounds back to the opposing shooters!

4) Straight On Shots to stick and 5
Hole

If you are too firm on your stick grip or you
like to push your goalie stick forward into an on-ice shot, you will
give pucks back to the other team. Although you want a firm grip
with your hand on the paddle, you still need to “give” with it a bit
so the puck can deaden at your feet where it can be frozen. Many
times I do a simple drill to see if a goalie can cushion and freeze
a puck or cleanly deflect the puck to a corner and the goalie has a
difficult time. This situation happens a lot so you shouldn’t be
giving these pucks back! If someone shoots into your 5 Hole, can you
create a nice soft “body pocket” or “bread basket” where the puck
settles nicely into your body with no rebound? If you have trouble,
your upper body lean may not be timing right with your butterfly so
the puck deflects back into play.

5) Bad Sets for Your D

If you never stop dumped
pucks correctly for your defensemen or communicate with them on
loose pucks, don’t be surprised when the opposing forecheckers win
the puck, zip a pass to a slot shooter who pulls the trigger and
scores. Fans may say “what a great shot”, but the shooter never
would have gotten the puck if you had a good hand-off with your D on
the original loose puck!

Summary: These are merely
5 examples of controllable shots that are left uncontrollable by a
sloppy goalie. Pay attention to details so 100% of the controllable
shots are really controlled. If you don’t give away sloppy plays,
you may be amazed at how much better your goals against average and
save percentage is!